Monopoly is not the answer

Certificate-of-need (CON) regulation was originally intended to correct market failures that no longer afflict health care markets. It is ironic that Sujit Choudhry and colleagues now invoke it to deal with situations where, in their view, competition is working altogether too well. Protectionist regulation, long discredited in other areas, is particularly misguided in health care, where health insurance greatly increases the profitability of monopoly and imposes the resulting higher costs on unwilling premium payers. To use cross-subsidies to finance even worthy (let alone unworthy) health care projects is to put public burdens unfairly (regressively) on the backs of working Americans.